Harlan F. Stone

“ Regulation of vehicular traffic over the highways of the United States involves a far more varied and complex undertaking. The highways of the country have been built by the states with substantial financial aid from the federal government in the construction of some of them. [3] They are state owned, and, in general, are open in each state to use by privately owned and controlled motor vehicles of widely different character as respects weight, size, and equipment. ”

“ A construction of the reservation made in § 225 is not to be favored which would deprive the states of authority to make safety regulations of sizes and weight before Congress was informed by a full investigation and report of the Commission of the nature of the regulations, both those in force and those which are needed, and whether in the light of the competing demands for national uniformity and for accommodation to local conditions, regulation of sizes and weight can be best prescribed by the Commission, by the state legislatures, or by a divided authority. ”

“ It is true that the report of the Coordinator presenting the bill for Congressional action particularized gross weight and overall dimensions as a common subject of regulation by the states and as a reason for making the investigation. But we find nothing in the report, or in his testimony before the Senate Committee, or elsewhere in the legislative history, to show that it was intended by § 225 to confine state power to regulation of sizes and weights of automobiles and their loads to gross weights and overall dimensions. ”

“ The Uniform Act regulating motor car traffic on highways, which was recommended by the National Conference of State and Highway Safety in 1930 and 1934, which was referred to in the report of the Coordinator, placed all size and weight regulations in a single 'Article XVI, Size, Weight and Load', separate from the articles containing provisions relating to the speed, driving and movement of motor cars and from 'Article XV, Equipment', which was confined to automobile parts and accessories and their inspection. ”

“ After a hearing in which there was extensive evidence tending to show that the transportation by appellants over the state highways of cars placed above the cab of the transporting vehicle is unsafe to the driver and to the public, the trial court found that the location of motor vehicles over the cab of the carrier rendered its operation dangerous on the curves and grades of the Pennsylvania highways. ”

“ But in a brief filed in this cause it contends that the Pennsylvania statute is an infringement of the Commission's authority to regulate safety of equipment. In ordinary speech the load of a vehicle is not spoken of as a part of its equipment. In the Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, promulgated by the Commission, safety of equipment is treated as synonymous with or the equivalent of parts and accessories of motor cars affecting safety. ”

“ It found that such location of the carried car above the driver raises the center of gravity of the loaded car above that which is normal in trucking operations, places excessive weight on the front axles and tires, obscures the vision of the driver of the carrier car, with the results that it increases the difficulty of steering the loaded car, adversely affects braking, particularly on curves, and affects the balance of the loaded car so as to make its use on the highways dangerous. ”

“ It could not be assumed that in the meantime a rapidly changing industry would not produce new types of vehicles involving new problems of the relation of sizes and weight to safety such as are involved in the present case. ”

“ New Hampshire, 1939, 306 U.S. 79, 59 S.Ct. 438, 83 L.Ed. 500.↑ See note 9, supra.↑ In addition to subsection (c) of § 1033, which in its amended form is specifically directed to the location of the 'weight' of the carried car, the section contains three other subdivisions which affect size and weight distribution of the loaded vehicle. Subsection (a) prohibits the operation of vehicles 'having two levels for the carriage of other vehicles'. Subdivision (b) prohibits operation of vehicles carrying other vehicles any part of which is more than 115 inches from the ground ”